


la petit mort innocente

by toromeo (ald0us)



Series: an arrangement most strange [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, Victor may be an asshole but he still practices good bdsm etiquette, abuse of Shakespeare and Verdi, shapeshifter!Jonathan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 16:33:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15934253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ald0us/pseuds/toromeo
Summary: Victor and Jonathan celebrate Jonathan’s birthday.





	la petit mort innocente

**Author's Note:**

> Set chronologically after my first sebvictor fic, though reading the first fic isn’t necessary for comprehension.

Jonathan slid the dead man’s laptop into a plastic sleeve, then into his backpack. The phone, stele, and the man’s family ring went next. Then his seraph blade, slipped into Jonathan’s holster to replace the one he’d lost off the rooftop. He observed the dead man’s body a moment, then looked away.

Pulling out his latest burner phone—a Razer flip phone not unlike the one he’d played with as a child—he rounded to the foot of the bed and snapped a picture of the dead man’s body, then sent it as a text to the number he’d memorized earlier that week.

No reply. He must be in a meeting.

Jonathan made his way to the bathroom, picking his way through empty beer cans, food wrappers, and dirty clothes. The motel was, quite frankly, disgusting, but he’d lived in far worse places. As soon as he’d gotten to the sink he pushed the tap on with his elbow and put his bloodied hands under the stream. It hurt—he’d worn his knuckles raw and possibly broken something, but they would be healed soon. Same with the bloodied nose. The bleeding cut on his chest would need an _iratze._

Jonathan cupped some of the lukewarm water and bent over the sink to splash it on his face, washing off the flecked blood on his skin. There was blood under his fingernails, but he could deal with that later. Taking one look at the yellowing towels, he opted to wipe his hands on his jeans and mop the water off his face with his sleeve.

He pulled his stele off his belt and sketched out a quick _iratze_ onto his hip. The stinging pain of the knife cut faded almost instantly, though the tear and blood in his shirt would not.

Returning to the bedroom he scanned the room over once more for anything he may have missed. He’d combed through the bed, the bathroom, the tiny kitchenette, even the fridge. There were the contacts on the man’s phone and an encrypted external hard drive under the mattress, and a not-insubstantial wad of cash in the freezer, which Jonathan took mostly out of habit.

He gave a last look the dead man’s way. His mouth and eyes were still wide open, a widening ring of blood seeping into his shirt, matching the Circle rune red and livid on his neck.

He deserved it.

Jonathan picked up his backpack from the bed and slung it over his shoulder, checking his reflection as he passed on his way to the door—he looked normal, like a college student with an unusual resistance to the weather, though he made sure to pull his jacket over the tear in his shirt to hide the blood.

He read the fire escape map on the inside of the door, then opened the door and glanced out into the hall. The burner phone vibrated in his back pocket and Jonathan grabbed it, unlocking it immediately.

The responding text read,

_ > 30 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York. _

Jonathan returned the phone to his pocket and started off down the hall, letting the door slam shut behind him.

  
  
  


“You didn’t say 30 Lincoln Plaza was the Met Opera House.”

Victor looked unrepentant, his breath fogging in the night air. He had once smoked, Jonathan knew, but had given it up for his health. Nicotine was a very addictive drug, and sometimes Jonathan wondered if he’d only used it and then given it up as a test of his iron will. “I’d hoped the resident computer expert could use Google Maps.”

“But why here?” It was cold in New York, cold enough that Jonathan could feel it. Victor was wearing a long wool coat and a dark grey scarf, and the sparkling lights from the buildings around them reflected in his dark eyes.

At this Victor looked mildly amused. “April 4th, sweetheart. It’s your birthday.”

The breath he’d been taking stuck painfully in his throat and Jonathan felt his chest tighten. “How...” he forced the breath out and sucked in another icy one. “How did you know?”

“Clave records.” Victor favored him with a swift kiss, then another, longer one. “I have us tickets for Verdi’s _Otello_.” To Jonathan’s uncertain expression, he added, “It was that or a cake, and you do those better than I do.”

Jonathan thought wistfully of an evening curled up in Victor’s lap by the fireplace, then looked to the grand, windowed hall of the Metropolitan Opera house. He knew how Victor loved the arts and well...he’d never seen such a thing himself.

Too busy killing.

The thought was a surprisingly bitter one. _Jace_ had been the one to receive Valentine’s efforts at culture, though before he’d been moved to the cabin in Brocalind forest Jonathan had often filled his time in the empty, crumbling Morgenstern Manor alone at the enormous, gleaming piano. But as always, he was not Jace—he could play a few pieces by heart, but his learning was effortful, clumsy, and frustrating. He could read notes and play them, but there was no musicality or rhythm to his playing—it always sounded harried and emotional, never smooth and calm and effortless as it should be.

Angelic, golden Jace had been encouraged to read; Jonathan had been punished for it.

“I’d like to see it,” Jonathan said, firmly. “Though, I don’t think I’m dressed for it.”

Victor smiled and arched an eyebrow. “I hardly think that will be a problem for you.” He pressed another kiss to Jonathan’s cheek and despite the cold his lips were warm. “Fancy dress recommended.”

Jonathan didn’t know much about opera house dress codes, but he did know plenty about Victor. He was a secretive, closed-off man in many ways, but some rooms in his mind he did allow Jonathan to see—like low-hanging fruit. Jonathan mapped each room in turn, stealing fleeting glances down dark hallways as Victor led him around his tour. Victor was a careful, exacting man, but Jonathan was patient and had a lifetime of practice.

“Give me your coat for a moment and I’ll change,” Jonathan said. Ordinarily he’d find somewhere secluded to change shape, preferably somewhere with a mirror where he could iron out the little details, like someone might retouch their makeup. But Victor did so love his little party tricks, and Jonathan not-so-secretly loved showing off for him.

Victor gamely shucked off his coat, wrapping it fondly around Jonathan’s shoulders. It was still warm, and smelled of him and his cologne—subtle but spicy and musky. Up close, the smell was intoxicating, and Jonathan breathed it in deeply. He found the smell very sexy, and noticed that Victor had started wearing less in deference to Jonathan’s heightened senses.

Closing his eyes, Jonathan painted an image in his mind’s eye, pulling from magazines and ads and all the glitz and glamour of New York, from the old boring films with gorgeous men and women, from the gorgeous people that walked by them now. It came easily: Sebastian’s body— _his_ body—came to him as naturally as breathing. A few alterations here, a few changes there, and—

Jonathan let the new skin ripple over him, sucking in his breath as it tightened over his bones, then opened his eyes.

Both of Victor’s eyebrows were arched elegantly over his eyes. With a curl to his lips he leaned in and pulled his jacket from over Jonathan’s new white one; it slipped off Jonathan’s shoulders as easily as if it were immaterial, revealing lush, white fur. Jonathan reached out to touch the fur coat, unable to believe the softness of it, how good it felt when it tickled his cheeks.

“You look beautiful, pet,” Victor said in his ear, and a jolt shot through Jonathan like lightning. His hand slid over the crimson silk of Jonathan’s dress, finding the open back and slipping his hand between it and Jonathan’s skin. Jonathan’s breath went short in his chest and he kissed him, wrinkling his nose at the unfamiliar taste of lipstick rubbing off on Victor’s lips. He felt luxurious and sexy, reveling in the way with Victor’s hand touched his chest, how the cut of the red silk made his body look soft and inviting.

Victor pulled back, his dark brown eyes holding mischief. He held out his arm. “My lady.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow but took the proffered arm and felt himself flush nonetheless. He wobbled precariously on his heels, unused to balancing so delicately while standing on solid ground. Already, his feet were starting to ache. 

“Clothes have no gender,” he said, a bit pedantically.

“Of course not, pet.” Victor sounded unrepentant. He took Jonathan’s chin with his thumb, as if admiring him. “What shall I call you, then?”

Jonathan thought of the dead man’s body lying in the grimy hotel room, the slick slide of his blade through sinew and bone. Of how it felt to have a leash pulled taut about his neck. “How about ‘hound?’”

“It suits you,” Victor agreed, a sharp gleam to his eyes. Together they started across the plaza, Jonathan’s arm twined with Victor’s. Jonathan could feel the pull of people’s gazes on them as they passed, the slide of their eyes down his body and the lines of his legs. It felt fiendishly good, and Jonathan thought greedily of how Victor’s eyes would feel as he undressed him later that night. A birthday present, indeed.

“Did you get my text?” Jonathan asked. They were walking at a brisk pace, but after so long being on the hunt it felt strange not to blend in for the sake of blending in, to attract attention rather than deflect it.

“I did,” Victor said. He sounded very matter-of-fact, as if they were discussing the weather. Even here, the Clave’s eyes and ears could be anywhere and everywhere. “Very well done.”

Jonathan felt himself all but glow at the praise, unnatural heat spreading over his cheeks. The heat only intensified when Victor leaned in and said, lowly, “How should I reward you, my hound?”

Somehow, this made Jonathan feel much more like a puppy that was being rewarded for good behavior than congratulations on having hunted down and murdered an enemy of the Clave.

Somehow, it didn’t particularly bother him.

Innuendo didn’t come as seamlessly to Jonathan as it seemed to come to Victor, especially when he was already flustered, but he did enjoy wordplay and it seemed the two could often be related. “Well,” he said, savoring the hungry look in Victor’s eyes, “I could definitely make a case for sitting in your lap and being petted.”

The words tasted clumsy and vulgar in Jonathan’s mouth, and it thrilled him as much as it embarrassed him to hear them out loud. Especially in Sebastian Verlac’s voice, which made everything sound so...dignified.

Victor’s eyes looked amused in a way that suggested that Jonathan hadn’t been entirely successful with his attempts, but Victor nipped a quick kiss to his neck nonetheless. “That can be arranged.”

The Metropolitan Opera house was a massive lattice of windows and light, framed by huge arches and proud, imposing columns. Jonathan craned his neck upwards, taking the splendor in with wide eyes. Even after years of being in and around Idris and New York, he still sometimes felt like a simple, naïve country bumpkin entering the big city for the first time. A creature of the dark entering the light.

As Victor helped him up the stone stairs, Jonathan thought back to the cabin in Brocalind Forest, how he used to squint up at the light that entered through the slots between the wood floors and marvel at how pretty it was. How he used to wish he could reach out and touch it and feel its warmth.

Something stuck in his chest and Jonathan squeezed Victor’s hand; Victor squeezed back. His hand was warm.

Victor proffered two tickets to a man at the door, who nodded them inside. The main hall hall was filled with people and overflowing loud with bubbly conversation; the sound hit Jonathan like a wave of heat, threatening to overwhelm him. The hot pressing mass of bodies tugged at his senses, strong cologne and perfume cloying in his nostrils. Fear reared in his chest but he pushed back down on it, swallowing hard and trying to block out everything but the steady press of Victor’s shoulder against his arm.

“This way, sweetheart,” Victor said, tugging him gently towards a massive, towering white staircase robed in red carpet, flaring up towards the ceilings like enormous wings. Jonathan followed, as swiftly as he could on wobbling heels. A well-coiffed usher directed them to their seats, her hair shining like copper; Jonathan caught his reflection’s eye in a mirror and admired himself framed in rich red, white, and gold before the reflection was whisked away.

The hall itself was incredible. Crimson velvet seats spanned as far as the eye could see, wrought golden banisters, layers and layers of balconies overlooking the stage. Enormous rich curtains draped the stage, and bright chandeliers sparkled from the ceiling and walls.

“It’s....big,” Jonathan said, stopping to look up and take it all in. It reminded him of an Institute, of a vaunted church hall, but wrought and plated in gold. Indecent.

“Big,” Victor repeated, with a smile. “You should leave a Yelp review.”

Jonathan racked his brain for a synonym that wasn’t _fancy_ or _pretty._ Poetics was also not his strong suit. “Gorgeous?”

“You don’t have to describe it,” Victor said, without mocking. He pushed Jonathan’s hair back from his face. “You can just take it in.”

So _take it in_ he did. Every patron draped in finery that passed by their seats Jonathan watched with rapt attention. A woman who wore a black hat with a laced veil, a man who smelled of lilacs. A woman in a hijab so beautiful it seemed she was some medieval painting come to life. An elderly man accompanied by a young woman, a mother with her son. Mundanes, most of them, though Jonathan was quite sure he saw a warlock or two and a group of bored-looking seelies. One of the seelies saw him looking and gave a drol smile.

Jonathan watched them, and Victor watched him watch, occasionally touching Jonathan’s back and making him shudder with pleasure. Jonathan wondered if Victor enjoyed this, watching him gape about at all the splendor like a country bumpkin.

It wasn’t that Jonathan was completely uncultured. He’d read voraciously as a child, often with nothing to distract him alone in the Morgenstern manor but books or training. As a child he must have read Mary Shelley’s _Frankenstein_ a hundred times, and from there Milton’s _Paradise Lost_. But he had no guidance save the dusty texts themselves, no tutor in Latin and Greek but the translators notes in the footnote.

His father had taken _Paradise Lost_ away and replaced it with Virgil and Homer and Dante. As much as Milton had captured his imagination, painted the scenes of hell in vivid detail in Jonathan’s young mind, captured the torment of the fallen hero Lucifer, Dante and Virgil made him terribly afraid. Milton’s Satan had been a comfort, a hero. Virgil’s texts were damning, rigid; he could not see himself in Achilles, who always had Patroclus until the very end.

Jonathan was alone. He saw himself in Dante’s demons and sinners, twisted and tortured in hell, damned to an eternity of suffering. _Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies._

He put aside his books and threw himself into his training. With nothing to distract him he excelled, so much better than stupid Jonathan Herondale. At first, his father was delighted, praised his progress. But the descent, as it turned out, was a slow one. First came the wards around the mansion, then the cabin in Brocalind Forest. Then the basement. Then—

Jonathan sucked in a reflexive breath, pushing back against the sudden terrible tightness in his chest. These were his cheerful skies, the mighty labor of the ascent done. He was free. _He was free._ His father was dead by his sister’s hand, a vengeance worthy of Clytemnestra or the Furies themselves.

A touch to his arm startled him. Victor looked concerned, brow furrowed. In a discrete tone, he leaned in and asked, “Is it too much? Do you need to go outside?”

Jonathan glanced around. Indeed, he’d hardly noticed that the hall had filled up with people, so engrossed in his own private drama. Ordinarily the press of sound and heat and smell would be overwhelming, but somehow Jonathan seems to ride the sensory chaos, letting the cacophonous chatter pull him away from his internal stage.

He smiled. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

Victor gave him a slow, surprisingly chaste kiss, and the indulgence melted away the headache that had been building at Jonathan’s temples. He chased the kiss, wishing he could climb over the armrests and settle into Victor’s lap, feel Victor’s arms around his waist. Technically, there was nothing stopping him—he could do it in front of all the watchful eyes behind him already glaring their way. None of them could stop him—

“Don’t be so restless, pet, the first act is about to start,” Victor whispered, though he touched Jonathan’s chin fondly. Jonathan took his hand in a satiny glove, and turned his attention to the stage.

He’d read _Othello_ before, when he was quite young, but he remembered the vague outlines of the play. The details came trickling back as the actors strode onto stage—traitorous Iago, noble Othello, doomed Desdemona. The actor who played Othello had a beautiful voice, rich and full, and his song seemed to elevate even these vaunted halls. He owned the stage, the focal point around which the whole world seemed to turn; his charisma was so great that Jonathan could no more look away than he could stop the world from spinning.

He wondered if Victor had ever identified with Othello as Jonathan had with Milton’s Satan or Shelley’s monster. A noble general—and the only black man in Shakespeare’s works. The Clave had never been acutely racist, having found more compelling forms of xenophobia to pursue, but Jonathan had to imagine being a man of color hadn’t exactly been a boon to his career, either. And yet he was the Inquisitor’s right-hand man.

Victor hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about his personal life before Jonathan entered it, though he had divulged the bold outlines of his history with his one-time fiancé, Eva. It was unavoidable—he could not hide the scars on his chest like Jonathan could hide his own.

But Jonathan, perhaps unbeknownst to him, had already read his file with the Clave, long before he’d even come to the Institute with Isabelle Lightwood. He knew how close to death Victor had been, how many other scars had become invisible. He knew the tempest of doubt Victor had been thrown into after his recovery, the guilt and the grief. Even his superiors had privately remarked on it, and they had not objected when Victor left the medic corps to become a diplomat.

Did he see himself in Othello, the noble man betrayed by the one he loved? Or did he see himself as Othello, the noble man who had killed his innocent love?

Jonathan watched, glassy-eyed, as Othello sang of Desdemona’s betrayal, as she begged for an hour more, a second. The torment in Othello’s face as he realized he had been misled, that Desdemona was innocent, that he had killed her for Iago’s lies.

Jonathan had no opinion on Eva’s death. The tale was a tragedy, to be sure, but Jonathan found himself more preoccupied with a more urgent question: whether he himself would some day face down Victor’s blade. And if so, whether Jonathan could bear to kill him.

Applause thundered through the hall, and with a jolt Jonathan realized the opera was over. He clapped too, watching the actors and actresses take their bows. Othello and Desdemona, returned from the grave, hand in hand and beaming.

The crowds lingered in the hall for a long while before beginning to trickle out. Victor took Jonathan’s arm and guided him down the stairs. Jonathan had to be careful not break anything in his shoes; Victor watched and aided his attempts not to topple with mild amusement. They were nearly to the door when a voice called out,

“Ah, Mr. Aldertree. What a...pleasant surprise.”

Adrenaline shot through Jonathan and in the split second Victor turned around Jonathan shifted, throwing on the first face his panicked mind could bring to bear. Gold-spun hair drawn down into a bun, smaller nose, painted eyes, pointed chin, slimmer figure—

Jonathan turned around, heart thudding in his chest. Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood stood arm in arm, each sleek and dapper in their respective finery. Well, Magnus was—dressed in a full tuxedo with tails, a crisp white shirt, shining shoes. A glimmering ring sat on one hand, his painted nails dark. Alec, for his part, wore a simpler suit, though it had been tailored, and if Jonathan had to guess, the mulberry-colored tie and patterned dress shirt he wore were picked out by Magnus.

“Mr. Bane, Mr. Lightwood,” Victor replied, in a casual, familiar tone. He glanced towards Jonathan, and his expression bore his approval. “Surely you’ve met Alice Wintermark.”

Alec would not, of course, had much dealing with any of the Wintermarks, due to a rather ardent spat between the two families that had started with some Wintermark boy shaming a Trueblood girl generations ago. He would of course report the Wintermark and Aldertree association to his mother, who would take it as further evidence of the Wintermark untrustworthiness and make no attempt to verify it.

Alec gave a characteristically dour look Jonathan’s way. “I haven’t.”

Victor looked somewhere between exasperated and amused. He enjoyed tormenting Alec, Jonathan thought, but also found him unforgivably uncouth. Alec seemed to have little interest in developing the politician’s smooth, polished treachery, preferring his own native bluntness; Victor took pride in his serpent’s tongue.

“I wouldn’t have marked you as a man who enjoys the arts,” Victor continued, to Alec. “Do you attend them often?”

Before Alec could reply, Magnus stepped in smoothly. “Verdi was the friend of a friend,” he said, with a little wave of his hand that suggested such things were to be taken in stride. “Alec indulges my nostalgia.”

They exchanged doting looks. Jonathan watched them, a growing sense of unease at the pit of his stomach. Was this how Victor and Eva once looked at each other, as if they alone had conquered the world, that by their love they stood in daily defiance of it? Would Magnus or Alec one day be the scars on the other, a sinewy reminder of idealistic folly?

These were questions Jonathan could not answer.

Magnus and Victor bid each other adieu, all false charm and nonchalance, and Alec glared at Victor and Jonathan alike with poorly-veiled dislike. Jonathan felt a bizarre urge to warn him his face might freeze that way.

Then Magnus and Alec were gone, and Jonathan wore his own face again, and he and Victor were alone in the crowd under the New York sky and smothered stars.

  
  
  


When they returned home to the Aldertree Manor, Jonathan noticed the fireplaces were already lit, suggesting that Victor had planned this—or had been genuine in his offer to forgo _Otello_ if Jonathan had wanted to stay home. Either way, the house blazed with heat, a welcoming glow suffusing the walls.

“It’s not much,” Victor was saying, as he pulled a bottle of extremely expensive-looking champagne from the fridge. It was pink and had a cream-colored label. He set two elegant glasses on the kitchen island, then reached into the fridge again and pulled out a white box. “And I’ll tell you now, it’s from a store.”

Tentatively, Jonathan opened the paper box up. Inside was a small, elegant-looking white cake, with the words _Happy Birthday_ written on it in an looping light blue script.

“I’m sorry it couldn’t have your name, or something more personal,” Victor continued, his hand on Jonathan’s back. “I’m afraid it was enough of a risk to order it around your real birthday. I hope you like it.”

Jonathan blinked back sudden tears, fighting back the lump in his throat. He’d never had a birthday cake. He knew of them, of course—Clary had celebrated her birthday at the Institute while he was there, and Jace had driven everyone except Isabelle nearly insane trying to find the perfect cake. Even Sebastian had been forced to opine on whether leopard print frosting was too much. He’d watched her make a wish and blow out her candles, and silently he’d made a wish too.

Maybe his wish had finally come true.

“Take me upstairs,” he said, breathing it against Victor’s ear and twining his arms around Victor’s shoulders. He felt real, material, solid under Jonathan’s touch. All his own, just as he was all Victor’s.

“As you wish,” Victor said, one side of his mouth curling upwards. “Though I will warn you, the cake will probably melt—”

“We can take it up,” Jonathan said. “And the champagne too.”  
  
Ordinarily, Victor would never agree. He hated messes, and the thought of champagne, cake crumbs, or Angel forbid, frosting in his bed would make him remind Jonathan of who looked after the place when Jonathan was away. But he too seemed to have been infected by the strange, adventurous recklessness and he simply touched the back of Jonathan’s neck and said, “As you wish, pet.”

Jonathan grabbed the cake and champagne, and Victor grabbed Jonathan, scooping him up and carrying him bridal-style towards the stairs. He was quite a bit heavier than Sebastian Verlac’s body would suggest, and they both eventually collapsed halfway up the stairs.

Jonathan laughed, giddy, and even Victor—always so serious—laughed too. Impulsively, Jonathan kissed him, gasped and groaned as Victor kissed back, running a hand through Jonathan’s hair. He tugged at Victor’s suitcoat, sighing as Victor’s hand touched his thigh.

“We can’t have sex on the stairs, sweetheart,” Victor said, pulling back to watch him with amusement.

“Why not?” Jonathan countered. He was smiling, in the impish way that made Victor look at him with a look that sent a thrill up his spine. “It might be rather hard on the knees, but I can take a lot of punishment—”

Victor’s lips found the sensitive skin of Jonathan’s neck and he broke off with a silent gasp. “Wouldn’t you rather that punishment be a bit more intimate?”

“Yes,” Jonathan breathed, without thought. He didn’t need to think—something far more primal had taken its place. He _wanted,_ with a ferocity and insistence that took his breath away. “Yes, please.”

Another languid, open-mouthed kiss; Jonathan turned coyly away and put the champagne in Victor’s hand. With his free hand he plucked Victor’s tie from his suitcoat, giving it a gentle tug. Victor followed, his gaze so intense Jonathan shivered in anticipation, imagining Victor’s gloves around his throat.

Once they were in the bedroom Jonathan put down the cake and glasses on the marble surface of the bedside table and climbed onto the bed, stretching out catlike. Everything was so soft and slick and sensuous in his silk and fur and he grabbed onto Victor’s tie again, giving it a beseeching tug.

Victor abandoned his attempts to take off his suitcoat, indulgently mounting the bed and retrieving Jonathan’s favorite lube. The lube was faintly pink and claimed to contain some kind of arcane aphrodisiac, though Jonathan privately suspected the only sexually active ingredient it contained was the placebo effect.

In his dark suit he cut the perfect figure of calm, cool authority, though his tie was now askew and a flush had crept over his handsome cheekbones. His hair was slightly longer than usual, and Jonathan longed to touch the soft curls, to feel the gentle scrape of Victor’s perfectly-kempt beard over sensitive skin.

Victor pulled off his gloves in turn and Jonathan whimpered in anticipation as one bare hand cupped the back of his thigh and pushed the red curtain of Jonathan’s dress up towards the small of his back, dipping in close to press a line of kisses to Jonathan’s chest. Jonathan groaned and grabbed at the soft pillows above his head, his whole body buzzing with excitement as Victor pushed his thighs apart. His breath caught in his chest as Victor’s finger found his entrance; he jerked his hips in wordless encouragement.

Even in the haste of the moment, Victor was a conscientious lover, stroking and pushing Jonathan open. By the time he could comfortably fit two fingers, Jonathan begged him to stop—he liked a challenge, to feel the exhilarating burn.

Victor gave him another kiss, this time to one of his thighs. There was distinct, playful mischief in his dark-lashed eyes when he said, “As you wish, my hound.”

Jonathan gripped the wrought iron of the headboard, imagining his cuffs securing him in place. Victor’s weight settled between his legs, over his hips and chest, and Jonathan arched his back up to meet him, curling his legs around Victor’s waist, brazen. It felt incredible and wanton, humiliating and thrilling all at once, Victor’s weight and heat pressing around him, kisses hot points of pleasure on his neck and chest.

Then Victor pushed a hand between them to unbuckle his belt and moments later Jonathan gasped, gripping the headboard hard enough to warp the iron. The burn was more intense than he recalled but it was pure and perfect and Victor set a slow but demanding pace. Jonathan pressed back into the pillows, gasping out, reduced to nothing but pure, punishing sensation. He could feel Victor’s breath hot on his chest, one of his hands creeping down to grip Jonathan’s thigh, angling Jonathan’s hips up.

Jonathan moaned Victor’s name, savoring the possessive twitch of Victor’s lips, the graze of his teeth over Jonathan’s nipple through the silk of his dress. It hurt and it felt so good, sending starbursts of pleasure shooting down his spine, and he whined his approval with his prettiest begging. “ _Please, please, please—”_

Indulgently, Victor let go of Jonathan’s thigh and pinched his thumb and forefinger around the pulsing arteries of Jonathan’s neck, careful not to hinder Jonathan’s breathing. Even when he was rough he was careful, and there was something fascinating about that iron control that made Jonathan want to break it.

Jonathan was so close, so achingly sensitive and positively _alive_ with pleasure, and yet Victor drove him dizzyingly higher towards that peak. There were no thoughts in Jonathan’s mind, just need and suffocating want; he begged for seconds more, minutes of drawn-out exquisite sensation, Desdemona inverted. Every nerve ending was alight and burning for release. He’d held his breath to get that dizzying burn in his chest and just when it felt he could hold it no longer—

Jonathan gasped and gasped, sweet oxygen rushing to his brain and making his vision sparkle. His spine arched up as if he were possessed and he squeezed his legs around Victor’s waist, letting go of the headboard to cling to Victor’s shoulders.

Victor chased his own orgasm a few seconds more before letting lose a profound exhale, letting go of Jonathan’s throat. Heat suffused him and Jonathan groaned gratefully, savoring Victor’s string of muttered curses. His boneless weight on Jonathan’s chest was crushing but pleasurable, and he was somewhat disappointed when Victor rolled off him, stroking one of his sides fondly.

Jonathan tried to sit up, feeling profoundly light-headed. His coat had fallen off his shoulders and pooled under him, and his dress was in complete disarray, bunched around his waist and torn in a few places. His thighs were wet with come, and already a welcome ache suffused him.

“Champagne?” Jonathan asked.

Victor laughed and shook his head. Jonathan loved him like this, a little less controlled, a little less rigid and exacting. Soft around the edges. “You really don’t let me stop to catch my breath, do you?”

“That’s what the champagne’s for,” Jonathan said. Most alcohol had very little effect on him, if any, but he didn’t need faerie liquor for Victor to make his head spin. “Don’t you want to try my birthday cake?”

A well-placed opening rune on the champagne bottle and a hunt for plastic forks later, they were both two glasses down. Jonathan was unbuttoning Victor’s dress shirt while Victor fed him mouthfuls of sweet, creamy frosting—the cake seemed more frosting than cake.

“You know, the first performance of _Othello_ since the 1940s by the Royal Shakespeare Company with a black actor as Othello was quite recent,” Victor was saying, watching Jonathan take confused, delicate sips out of the champagne bottle. “In 1999, actually, with Ray Fearson. I never saw it, but I did see opening night at the Donmar Warehouse in London with Chiwetel Ejiofor.”

Jonathan lay his head down on Victor’s chest, frowning. “That’s quite recent.”

“It is.” Victor teased Jonathan’s hair with his fingers, stroking his shoulders. “More cake, pet?”

Jonathan opened his mouth and licked the glob of cake and frosting off the proffered plastic fork. Neither of them were drunk—Victor was very careful about how much he drank, and Jonathan would need a few more bottles to start feeling anything other than a little tipsy—but  there was a drunken confidence to the conversation that hadn’t been there before.

Victor fed him another bite. “Don’t you want to make a birthday wish, sweetheart? There’s no candles, but I suppose you could blow out the champagne bottle.”

Jonathan thought wistfully of the chaos of setting champagne on fire, but shook his head. “It already came true.” He tugged at Victor’s belt buckle, and gave his prettiest smile. “Let’s do it again.”

Victor chuckled. “Do you want me throw out my back on you?”

Jonathan pouted, licking suggestively at the prominent stamina rune on Victor’s ribs. “I could ride,” he said, putting as much _pathos_ in his voice as he could muster. He slithered upright, pressing wet kisses down Victor’s stomach and towards his hipbones, letting the extraordinarily expensive lingerie set Victor had brought him for New Year’s ripple over his body. “For my birthday.”

Victor sighed, putting his slender champagne glass onto the bedside table. “You drive a hard bargain.”

Jonathan smiled, already climbing into Victor’s lap. Maybe, just maybe, he’d break through that iron will. And if not—there was always next time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a truly obnoxious combination of a French expression for orgasm ( _la petit mort_ ) and Desdemona’s refrain of _“Muoio innocente”_ (“A guiltless death I die”) in Verdi’s _Otello_ after Othello smothers/chokes her. 
> 
> Thanks goes to [dellesayah](http://dellesayah.tumblr.com) for the beta, overall indulgence, and grammatical pest control.


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